Join us on this episode of Drive Radio as we embark on a journey through automotive insights and listener interactions. Hosts Josh Goff and company unravel the complexities of vehicle maintenance, particularly focusing on the significance of strut replacement. Discover the nuanced decision between replacing entire struts or opting for just the inserts, and weigh the pros and cons of your options. With valuable input from seasoned professionals, this episode is a mechanic’s guide right in your pocket, designed to keep you informed and ready for any automotive challenge.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hit it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Our lady of blessed acceleration, don’t fail me now.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s time for Drive Radio, presented by Colorado’s select auto care centers.
SPEAKER 15 :
Bop-a-da-bop!
SPEAKER 05 :
Whether you need help diagnosing a problem. I want to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want to have them answered immediately. Or just want to learn about all things automotive.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, how exactly does a positive track rear end on a Plymouth work?
SPEAKER 05 :
It just does. Then you’ve come to the right place. So start your engines, buckle up, and get ready to ride. Drive Radio starts now on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it is Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Myself, Josh Goff, joining me from Ridgeline Auto Brokers and Legacy Auto Repair up in Boulder and in Longmont, Fort Collins. And Larry Unger answering phones. Charlie Grimes, our engineer. And I got a couple text messages that have already come in.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right.
SPEAKER 06 :
When replacing struts, is it better to do the entire thing, springs and all, or just do the, depending on whether it’s a hydraulic or gas insert?
SPEAKER 03 :
Um, I like to, but you don’t always have to do the springs, but I do like the assemblies because we have top hats, which is usually where most of the noise comes through on that. So it’s kind of a cost thing too. So, you know, add it up. Sometimes if you need, you know, you do need springs or the top hats are bad on it, then it’s cheaper to put the whole assembly, you know, spring strut, top hats, boots, all that stuff in one assembly. So, okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I’m with Josh on that one. I already texted back an answer that if it were me personally, again, cost comes into play, definitely, but I’m an assembly guy. Just do it.
SPEAKER 03 :
When you just do the strut itself, you don’t get all the little pieces of rubber. You don’t get a new top hat. All the little things that get rid of all the noise does not come when you just put the strut itself in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct, which when you do the assembly, and keep in mind, too, that there’s more labor typically if you’re paying somebody to do this. You’re not doing it yourself, but you’re paying somebody. There’s going to be extra labor in just doing the inserts versus doing the complete assembly because they’ve got to use a spring compressor, take that spring off, put it back on, so, you know. In most cases, you’re not saving any money. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
A lot of times the techs like to do the struts, and then the owners sometimes we like to have the full assembly because then we’re not installing any issues too. It’s a piece of cake. It is. But there’s a big difference in price and quality. I’ve had a lot of the cheaper strut assemblies where I put them in and they were noisier than the ones that came out of the car. So you kind of get what you pay for on those.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, good to know. All right, question of the day. For those of you listening, I didn’t mention this, but I should have. We’ll get fired off here. Since Josh is here today, I thought this would be a good one. One of you, by the way, which I greatly, greatly appreciate. And I owe a huge thank you to one of you guys as listeners. And I mean this sincerely. One of you sent me a complete suggestion list of questions of the day. And I am not exaggerating. I’ve got them here in front of me. You probably sent me a solid 50 or more. Eh, maybe not 50. Eh, I don’t know. Probably 50. There’s probably close to 50 on this list. I appreciate that greatly, by the way. I cannot stress that enough. That helps me out a ton. I’m normally here on either a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning trying to rack my brain. What are we going to use for a question of the day and so on? So today’s question of the day, which came from this list, which I appreciate greatly. Vehicle, you regret selling. I think all of us have one of those. Some of us have maybe more than one. But that’s the question of the day. Give me a vehicle that you regret selling. Could be something recent. It could be something a long time ago. But you tell me what that is, and that’ll be the question of the day. So… Again, myself, Josh Goff. And lines are open. I should have mentioned that earlier also. You got a question for us, by all means, let us know. 303-477-5600. 303-477-5600. And again, text line 307-282-22307. 282 22 don’t forget the weather is changing with josh and i were just talking about that a moment ago as i look out here each week i look out we’ve got a little bit more color down here up above a lot of the color is is either right at the peak or it is is already peaked and it’s going the other direction i’ve been up in the mountains for a couple of weeks so i can’t say that some of you that live up there could probably tell us a little bit better But winter’s coming. We’ve got a little bit cooler today. It’s going to be a little bit cooler tomorrow. We’re getting to the point now to where we’re probably not going to see much into the 80s at this point. If we do, it’s unlikely. It’ll start getting cooler and cooler at night. You’ll be turning your furnace on here in the not-too-distant future. So reality is get your vehicle ready to go. And, Josh, along those lines, when it comes to the cold, what are some of the biggest things that you notice when it gets cold that people – should have done that didn’t and wish now they had to avoid being in the shop.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s always batteries, batteries, batteries, batteries. Right now when the temperatures aren’t that hard and the engine doesn’t have to work that hard to crank in the morning, the battery is fine. But the second we get a little cold snap, all those batteries that people have been putting off, you know start coming in and the other thing is is real soon you’re going to go out to your car in the morning and all your tire pressure lights are going to be on okay because we’re going to get that change where it cools down so now the actual pressure in your tires will go down a little bit so you’re going to have that morning where you know come in and see us we can top off your tires make sure they’re up to pressure but usually right around now that first cold snap we see everybody at the gas station or coming in because their tire pressure lights on
SPEAKER 06 :
So those are two main things. And what causes that typically? I mean, these are rhetorical questions, I know, but for everybody listening, what causes these things?
SPEAKER 03 :
So, you know, the pressure in your tires is based on temperature outside. So, you know, even if it was 100 degrees and say you set it at 65 degrees, you set it to 35 PSI. Well, as it goes up in temperature, the actual pressure in the tire increases. Even if you’re not driving it, it still does because it has more heat inside. on that so and because we don’t always use nitrogen we use you know ambient air in them all the time so that and then we have the reverse happen when it gets cold if they were 35 psi at 65 degrees we get down to 30 and they’ll drop below the threshold for the sensor so they can be 30 psi on that tire and then it trips the light okay which are there certain vehicles that are more sensitive to that than others i think the ones with actual tire pressure sensors nmr okay you know and probably a bigger tire because it has more mass sometimes a little low profiles you don’t see this much okay but some of the other manufacturers now don’t use the tire pressure sensor in the tire they use the abs system to decide so it’s not really an issue
SPEAKER 06 :
So they don’t ever have battery issues in the sensors and so on. So what they’re basically running off of is the revolutions of the tire, and they can sense how many revolutions there are in a certain distance to know this is where the pressure is actually at.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly, yeah. If they’re all 35 degrees and they’re the same make model of tire, they’re all going to turn the same revolutions going 65 miles an hour down the road.
SPEAKER 06 :
How does it know if, I mean, how accurate is that? Does it know exactly what the pressure is or does it just know it’s low? It just knows it’s low. So it won’t read to you exactly what the pressure inside the tire is.
SPEAKER 03 :
So you can always tell on those cars because the ones that have actual sensors in the tires, a lot of times, especially the higher end stuff, you go to display and it’ll tell you what the PSI is for every tire, including the spare. On those, it just gives you the light that says, check my tire pressures on it. And then also with those, when you do fill them back up, you need to go in and there’s always a button on those systems that say, I just refilled my tires. Start calculating again, basically.
SPEAKER 06 :
Do any of them work in combination or is it one or the other?
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s usually one or the other. What they’ve done, I think, with those, it’s usually the cheaper cars. So it’s, you know, the lower-end Volkswagens, the Honda, the lower-end Honda Civics because they didn’t want the extra cost of putting tire pressure sensors in each wheel. I see. And, you know, the radio frequencies and all that stuff. You know, you need… more computers, you need more antennas, you need more wires, so it’s not just the sensor in the wheel, it’s the fact that we actually have to have a way for it to broadcast out to it, and then something has to read all those signals and then calculate from there. It’s always the lower end cars that usually get the ABS system because it’s a cheap way to get around.
SPEAKER 06 :
That makes total sense.
SPEAKER 03 :
It meets Congress’s requirements is what it is. Makes total sense.
SPEAKER 06 :
And again, I did look up to them to make sure they had this correctly while Josh was talking. I looked this up. The person that sent in All of those questions of the day. I won’t give your last name, of course, because I don’t want to go down that, protect you as much as I can. But Adam, Adam was our person that actually emailed me all of those long, huge list of questions of the day. So Adam, if you’re listening today, I appreciate you greatly. I mean that sincerely. You took a huge load. off of me and gave me it’s a lot of work so thank you very much for doing what you did and for all of you listening we have we have a great listening audience i cannot say that enough you guys it’s a great team it’s a great family and and i’m very thankful for each and every one of you and especially when you guys do things along those lines it’s just huge and a lot of you will send me you know mike you’re somebody that sends me a lot of different articles and different things of what’s going on real quick speaking of that i was watching some news this morning before coming on air general motors In the first nine months of this year, have sold in the U.S. 2.2 million vehicles. Keep in mind that typically on a good year, we sell about 17 million cars in the U.S. on an annual year. So think about the 2.2 million out of that 17 and what a chunk of the market share is. They’ve got because you got to look at all of the manufacturers that are out there. So that’s huge. So General Motors has done very well. A lot of that comes from their SUV sales. And there’s even certain vehicles like Suburban that are up like 40 percent from where they were a year ago, which I honestly that when I really have a hard time. uh imagining i mean the numbers are the numbers i’m not saying they’re wrong but you got to look at that and say holy cow because suburbans aren’t cheap that’s a hundred thousand dollar vehicle today even cheap ones are you know 80 85 grand so pretty tough to in fact some of them are over 100 grand that 100 is probably average and i’m not exaggerating when i say that because some are going to be over that some are under that and in the reality is i mean it’s a lot of money and to be up 40% tells you something. And again, good job General Motors in this particular case. And we’ll talk more about that. But those of you that have questions, especially today, got Josh with us today. So whether you’ve got a question on buying, selling, how to handle things, we’ll get into some of those details. Some of you during this time of the year may look at selling a different vehicle off, rotating some things around. Maybe you’re going to acquire a different vehicle. Whatever the case, we’ll talk about some of those things. If you’ve got questions, please let us know. 303-477-5600. This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 03 :
That they are.
SPEAKER 06 :
I will give you that. They are just a raw, mean machine. I mean, back tires on those things. One thing about that car you have to be careful of is if you’re not careful, it will get away from you. It doesn’t have all of the sophistication that a lot of the newer cars have as far as controlling the traction and so on. And it’s a car that definitely can get loose in a heartbeat. But a fun car to drive.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s definitely a driver’s car.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is a driver’s car and very fun. Somebody also said, 2009 Pontiac Vibe, built side-by-side in the Toyota plant. I’m glad you thought that. That’s a car that I probably never would have owned. But, hey, to each his own. I just wasn’t a huge Pontiac Vibe guy at all. I think for me, just the look. Somebody said, missed my 91 Suburban, and my first new car ever was a 2020 WRX. Yeah, in the WRXs, and Josh, you can speak to that car. They’re a fun car, but that’s another one where is it going to be your daily driver comfort car and so on? Not really.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, at least a WRX kind of can be. The STI is not.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, good point.
SPEAKER 03 :
That car… Yeah, that’s not a daily driver.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. Somebody else said 2016 F-350 Platinum Powerstroke. 2016, 2016, that’s a 6.4, was it not, in 2016? Was that already a 6.7?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I don’t think the 6.7. That was still a 6.4, wasn’t it? Isn’t 16 the first year of the 6.7?
SPEAKER 06 :
I can’t remember. It was right in that area. It was 2016 or 2018, somewhere in that neighborhood. You could be right. 2016 might have been a 6.7.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think it was the first year.
SPEAKER 06 :
First year 6.7s? I’m going back in time. That was 10 years ago now. We’ll look and be sure and find out. Russ and Cheyenne is next. Josh is looking at that. Russ, go ahead.
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, I had a quick question. It’s time to finally put brakes on my truck. I got 140,000 on it. I finally wore out the front set. And I really want to know what the best set to put on.
SPEAKER 06 :
What are you driving? I’m sorry, I don’t remember.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s a 2004 2500 Chevy. It’s got the 8.1 gas motor.
SPEAKER 06 :
For us in the fleet job, I’ll let Josh comment on this as well, but for us in the fleet side of things, Russ, we use the fleet brakes. We actually use the fleet line. NAPA has a fleet line brake, if you would. I can’t remember the exact name of that particular pad, but it’s their fleet pad. And that’s what we’ve used. In fact, even when I had my shops back in the day, Russ, we were on the heavier trucks. We were using that brake pad at that time while we probably still use it today. We just found we had the best longevity, the least amount of squeaks, and so on. And it’s a brake that the pad consistency works really well on those heavy trucks. And it’s cheaper than some of the other ones, by the way.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. Because I was looking at the fleet, but the— I was concerned that they were going to be really squeaky.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, they’re not bad. We have had seen with some of the fleets, we’ve had some of that. That are the Aki Bonos. If you can get those for that, that’s the other one. That’s a good idea, too. Because that was, they went to pretty much Aki Bono to solve, John knows back in, you know, 87, you couldn’t stop any Chevy pickup truck. They were crap. Even throwing a boat anchor out of the back of it. That’s right. And then they kind of went to Aki Bono and said, we need to make these trucks stop. And that’s when they kind of went through GM’s brake system and they made it happen. The trucks, after about 90, I don’t know, mid-90s, all of a sudden you could actually stop a GM truck. And they started to get long pad life out of it, too. So I would look at the fleets. I have had a little bit of issue with noise on the fleets. But it’s also fleets being driven by employees driving fleet vehicles, too. Right. Well, and that’s… Does the squeak come from the pad getting dry, or does the squeak come from… It’s just the pad’s so hard, and that’s what I found, is that the pad’s kind of hard, so it builds a little bit more dust, and that’s where the squeak comes from. And they’re also not getting… The trucks don’t get washed. They just kind of get abused each day. So they do build up a squeak on that. But they do have long life. All the other stuff in the Napa line, pretty much everybody else, except for the Aki’s. And there’s usually a couple lines in the Aki’s right now, so… I would get the top-of-the-line ones on those.
SPEAKER 14 :
Do I get the Akis from Napa, or do I buy them?
SPEAKER 03 :
Napa sells them, and they also have two kits in those. Usually they have with hardware or without hardware. Always get new hardware.
SPEAKER 06 :
And they’re roughly the same price. I’m looking online here. They’re within $10 of each other, whether you’re buying the fleet or the Akibon, or is there $10 from one another?
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Plan on low hundreds on a set of pads for that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think you’ll get a little more life out of the fleet, but you might get a little more noise out of the fleet too, so…
SPEAKER 14 :
No, and that’s what I was going to say, is I’m willing to trade life for quiet.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
Because, I mean, you’re still, I got $140,000 out of this set.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and that’s because it came with those Akis on it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Although, Russ, I know you, and the way you keep your trucks and clean them and so on, frankly, you could probably run either and be just fine.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Again, in our fleet, we don’t really have any squeak issues, but our fleet, we’ve got a wash station and so on, and our trucks are washed on a routine basis and so on, and we just don’t have – I know what Josh is talking about, and I know where that comes from, but we don’t have those issues, nor would you, by the way.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay, so the squeaks come from the dirt. It doesn’t come from vibration from the pad.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. No.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
If you take care of it like you do, you wouldn’t have any issues.
SPEAKER 14 :
I just don’t want it to sound like I’m stopping a trash truck every time.
SPEAKER 06 :
It won’t. None of my fleet trucks sound like that at all.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
None.
SPEAKER 14 :
Okay. All right. I’ll go pick a setup then. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, that’s a great question, by the way, Russ. I appreciate that. And folks, this is where… Oh, how do I say this in a nice way, Josh? A lot of the guys on the counters, not to knock any of them, any parts store, Napa included, but they can look at what brakes they’re selling and what may be coming back on returns and get an idea of what some of the better products are that way, but they’re not installing these things. Very few parts guys on the counter, especially when it comes to these heavy-duty trucks and stuff, are driving those trucks and using those particular products. It’s just not something that’s that common anymore. Now, the car side of things, sure, they’re all driving cars and different things, and even their delivery trucks and so on. Yeah, that part they understand. But when it comes to the heavy-duty end of things, Josh, they’re not knocking them, but they’re just not in that world.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, they’re not at all. And, you know, the thing is you do need to use a fleet or a heavy-duty pad on your – if you have a F-250 or 350, anything above in that range or above because the cheaper pads just – they won’t last. They don’t last. You’ll burn right through them. I’ve seen, you know, fleet guys run through a set of the cheap pads in 7,000, 10,000 miles just –
SPEAKER 06 :
I remember back when those first came out and we were, and really didn’t know much about them, but we were struggling to Josh’s point, and this is decades ago, but struggling to find pads that would work on some of our, you know, heavier fleet guys. I mean, we were doing some stuff even for the fire department and things like that back in the day. And, you know, trying to get a brush truck to even, you know, coming up and down the mountain from Nederland and stuff, you know, trying to get those things to hold brakes and so on. And we finally found the fleet, you know, Napa came out with their whole fleet line and, And, again, this is several decades ago, and we switched over to those, and best thing we ever did. You tell a customer on the front, say, listen, if you keep things clean and so on, everything Josh just said, you’d let them know that. But, hey, if you don’t, you may get some squeak out of it, but your pad life – is going to be, you know, literally, I’m not even talking double, four or five times longer than what some of the other pad choices we had at that time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, it is, yeah. It’s a lot longer. And they break consistently all the way through. You know, some of the lesser pads, you’re coming down, you know, all the fleet guys, the electricians, all the contractors, they go up and then they, you know, come flying down the mountain. And by the time they get to the bottom, they’re having a ton of brake fade and all these issues with the fleets. they’re at least able to still stop and do what they need to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. Another car that just came in on what they wish they’d never sold, 1969 Camaro Convertible RS, my high school car. Yeah, that’s one you wish you had back today for sure. All right, keep sending us text messages on cars you wish you’d never sold. You can call in as well. Any questions, like Russ just did a moment ago, let us know what those are. We’ll come right back to you. Again, we’ll be back here in a moment. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, another question of the day from the text line that came in. Car regrets selling. 1967 Porsche 912. Was a daily driver for about eight years. It’s now worth about ten times what he sold it for. Yeah, that’s a, yeah, I’m sorry. There’s nothing else I can say. Somebody else said, after I was drafted two months after high school graduation, had to sell my 67 SS 396 Chevelle. I couldn’t stay on my father’s insurance. Yeah, that’s another one that you already know what they’re worth today. That would be one that… yeah you wish you actually had back absolutely and somebody just sent me a link I guess you could say on disc brake quiet I would never use that I’ve never used it if you do the proper brake job the correct way you don’t need to spray anything on anything and I would advise highly against spraying anything on a brake pad if it’s making noise if it’s making noise it’s either the pad or rotor combo something didn’t get done correctly when things were installed you’re not keeping it clean there’s lots of things that can come into play things didn’t get lubricated properly when you actually did the brake job itself there’s more to doing a brake job than just slapping pads and or even slapping rotors on there’s a lot more to it than that and if you’ve got squeak coming out of the brakes there’s typically minus some of the really high performance cars which those can squeak for other reasons not going on That’s not what we’re talking about. But on regular daily drivers, in today’s world, if there’s a brake squeak, something else is going on there that didn’t get done right in the last brake job. Am I right in saying that, Josh?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They didn’t get it clean or poor pad quality or, you know, you also get what you pay for on those. Yeah. The one benefit I have seen with like BG Stop Squeak, if you have a cheap pad and you use that, you can kind of hide the fact you have a cheap pad for a while. You can mask the fact. You can mask the fact.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay. But that’s not what you want in the long term. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Somebody else, a good friend of ours, sent in, 75 Ford Granada two-door, came with a 351 Windsor that I installed a Cam Chef 4-barrel carb, came stock with a Ford 9-inch rear diff. Yeah, a fun sleeper car. Yeah, those actually were. Now, again… For me, I have bought, sold, given what I’ve done my entire life, guys, I can’t even count how many cars I’ve owned over all the years and continue to still buy and sell and rotate in and out and so on, and it’s just one of those things. And it’s not because I get tired of a car. For me, typically, it’s, you know, something comes along, maybe a better opportunity. And I also try to watch the market pretty closely. Sometimes I do really well on finding a car that appreciates versus depreciates. Other times it’s like, yeah, this thing’s going to drop like a rock. I probably ought to do something different on this car because it’s not heading anywhere. And I actually made a move on a couple of vehicles that I owned, one of them being the V8 Jeep. So I had a V8 392 Jeep for the longest time. And Josh and I were talking even early summer, and that’s a car that I actually got out of mid-summer and went a different direction. And glad I did, because since then, they have dropped like a rock. I think I got out of that vehicle at exactly the right time. Had I kept that even a couple of months longer, I wouldn’t have gotten out of it what I did. And that’s because of the mistakes that are happening at Stellantis. I’ve talked about that in some of the shows here in the past. And Granted, they’re on the right track again. I feel like they are, but they have a lot of catching up to do.
SPEAKER 03 :
They do.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I mean a lot of catching up to do. And basically what Stellantis did was, which for all of you listening, that’s Fiat, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Maserati. What am I missing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Alfa.
SPEAKER 06 :
Alfa. Yeah. And something else. There’s something else that I’m missing. Anyways, long story. They chased the stock market. Rather than really producing good, solid quality vehicles, they had huge price increases, as we all know, back during COVID. Everything shot up. Every manufacturer is making money because they were able to raise prices. Dealers were only ordering top of the line models, which is what they make the majority of their money on. They have a lot higher profit margin in their top-of-the-line models than they do their lower-priced models, fleet vehicles, for example, their stripped-down version of whatever. They don’t make as much on those. And so they capitalized highly. And what happened is after COVID, they kept that trend going. Their stock was doing well. Their profit was good. And they kept that trend going without taking some of that money and putting it back into R&D. In fact, they made some really stupid moves. They went in on all EV. They were going to do an inline six instead of the V8 that they’d been known for. They trademarked the Hemi engine. They’re not the only ones making a Hemi engine, by the way, but they trademarked the name. Years and years, decades ago, they trademarked the name. Well, they were going to let all that go away, basically, and not do that any longer anymore. And the reality is that was a huge – Jeep, I should have said a moment ago, is the other brand that they own – huge mistake on their part to go that direction and allow some of those things to fall off. And it cost them in sales dearly. And at the end of the day, they realized that, wait a minute, this is not the direction we need to head. We’ve got to get back to our roots. We’ve got to get a change in the CEO end of things. And one of their biggest ownership investors, quote unquote, that’s over in Italy, basically said, yeah, we need a huge change here. And we can’t continue to do the things that we’ve been doing. And we’ve got to get this thing turned around. And it’s interesting, the guy that actually is a huge owner of Stellantis, owns a good portion of their stock, also owns a good portion of Ferrari stock. So he’s very intricate to what goes on over in that part of the world and said, listen, we can turn this around and make this work. And we need to and we’re going to. And to his credit, he actually has. And you’ve seen them do some things now. You know, they’ve come back. Some of their quality has changed. They’ve come back with some of the V8 models and some of the vehicles that they’re going to be doing. They revived the Hemi engine, if you would. And so I think they’re on the right track. But they know that they’ve got a huge rebuilding process. chore in front of them, and they do, and it’s not going to happen overnight. And in turn, you’ve now got Chevrolet, for example, GM that has come in and said, okay, we’re just going to take a certain amount of that market share that you guys let slip away, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. So Bob and Thornton, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 13 :
So, John, in the latest inflation report in September, They list overall inflation, but I don’t know why they do that because certain items go up, certain items go down. New cars, they reported, were up 0.9% for the month, but used cars were up a full 6%. Used cars, and I believe that has to do with, you know, new cars are getting more and more expensive. You know, they cost more to insure, they cost more to license, they cost more, you know, on and on and on. So people are dropping back to buying used cars. And I think a lot of the used car market now is lease car returns and rental fleet returns. Your guests there should probably know a little bit about that. But, yeah, the used car market is going, like, crazy up, and the new car market is level to nonexistent. You know, I don’t know what’s going on there.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s funny, too, really quick, because some of you will see some videos and things along these lines where it talks about how the used car market is crashing. And what they’re using as a benchmark is that CarMax, who owns a lot of vehicles nationwide, they’re using CarMax and Carvana, by the way, as their inventory dropping in value. Now… That’s not wrong, but that’s not an indicator of the entire used car market. The problem with both Carvana and I think even CarMax is they own a lot of, and I just got done talking about Stellantis, they own a lot of Stellantis products, Jeep, Ram, et cetera. And, yes, those have taken huge hits in recent weeks and months when it comes to their prices because of what I just got done explaining. Mm-hmm. And knowing that those products aren’t as good as what they probably could be. And the other thing that’s happened is because of the revival of some of the new products and even some new pricing that’s happening on the new car side, it’s affecting the used car side, Bob, to your point. And that’s one area where, yes, there’s been some deflation, if you would, on the used car prices. But you’re correct. Overall, used car prices are not down. So you’re going to see reports that, oh, the market’s crashing. No, it’s not. It’s just some dealers are overloaded in certain product types that are deflating, yes. Exactly, certain brands are deflating.
SPEAKER 13 :
What just slapped me right in the face was new car prices in this inflation report, you know, towards the government, you know, new car prices were only up 0.6%, used car, no, 0.9%. And used car prices were up a full 6%. And I think that the used car market is depending on, like I said, lease returns that are generally about three years and rental fleets that dump their cars after, oh, anywhere from two to three years. The other thing is the EV credit went away on September 30th. Did you know, well, I’m sure you know this, the car manufacturers brought up all the cars that they could and got the rebates nationwide. I think it was seven grand. But in California, it was 12,500. Colorado was about 12,000. You know, different states and stuff. They brought them up. And now they’re going to put them back on the market. Now that they’ve got that cash in their hand, they can… How did they… I’m confused.
SPEAKER 06 :
How did they… They already got the rebate. How did they do that, Bob? They can’t do that.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, they did.
SPEAKER 06 :
They can’t.
SPEAKER 13 :
They did.
SPEAKER 06 :
They can’t.
SPEAKER 13 :
Why can’t they?
SPEAKER 06 :
Because a retail customer has to buy that. Even fleets, when you buy EVs, have a whole different federal credit and rebate going on than what a regular general customer has. So there’s no way they could do that. I don’t know who wrote that or what they said. That’s impossible. Furthermore… if they do that they can’t sell that car as a new car that would have to be titled uh registered etc and that would be have to have to be sold as a used car there’s no way that happened i don’t know who said that but they have no idea what they’re talking about couldn’t have happened well no way that one i will argue until i go to the grave there’s no way they did that in the normal channel of things uh in buying things the way it’s supposed to be done unless there was some huge work around i know nothing about which i read a lot and do a lot in that area, Bob, there’s no way that whoever said that has no clue what they’re talking about. Couldn’t have happened. They can’t sell that car as a new car if they did that. It’s impossible. The MSO goes away and it has to be titled. There’s no way it’s a new car any longer. Okay. Meaning they’re then going to take all that depreciation. Even if they’re doing that and they get all of that rebate, great. Now they’re selling the car at whatever that rebate was. It’s a net nothing to them at the end of the day. They’re not gaining anything by doing so because it’s a used car at that point. Whoever wrote that has no clue what they’re talking about. Zero. All right. Because it can’t happen. Again, the way the law works, for all of you listening, if it’s a new car with an MSO, so Manufacturer Statement of Origin is what MSO stands for. For all of you that are out there listening, that’s what the car comes with originally from the manufacturer. It’s not a title. It’s an MSO. And once that car goes from MSO to anything else, it by law has to be titled. In fact, in the state of Colorado, you’re only allowed… Is it 1,000, or what’s the mileage in Colorado to where it then has to be a used car even on a demo? What’s the new car law? I don’t know. There’s even a mileage limit, Bob, in Colorado as to how far that car can even be driven until it then becomes a used car and sold as a used car.
SPEAKER 13 :
I bought demos that were sold as new, and they had less than 1,000 miles.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think in Colorado the mileage limit is 1,000 miles. If they go over 1,000 on a new car, it now as a used car has to be sold as such.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I mean, that car that I referenced, the 2017 Chevy SS, that was a demo. I bought it with 350 miles on it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s still a new car at that point in Colorado. Yes, that one’s okay. Yep. Yep. No, I appreciate that. And I’ll do some research on that, Bob, because whoever wrote that article, there’s just there’s no way there’s no way they could have done that and taken advantage of that unless they did it through their own leasing division. But even then, the car can’t be sold as new. Right. If they took the rebate. Because you can’t double rebate. In some states, they’re still giving rebates. Even Colorado upped the EV credit from $6,000 to $9,000 after the September 30th deadline, and other states have done similar things along those lines. And you can’t double dip. So there’s just – whoever wrote that evidently doesn’t understand how things work because you cannot – Unless there’s some loophole I know nothing about, and I’ll do some research even through the break in the top of the hour, unless there’s some loophole I know nothing about, and if I find that, I’ll correct myself. But to my knowledge, there’s no way that that can happen. We’ll be right back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, I have an answer to what Bob stated a moment ago. So whoever wrote the article, and maybe they explained this in the article, and I don’t know. I’d have to go, Bob, if you want to send me that article, I’ll read that and make sure that whoever wrote that is saying it exactly. So what some manufacturers did. is they bought the vehicles from the dealer putting it into their leasing program lowering the price to the end customer it’s still going to be i think in that case a used car that what i’m reading isn’t saying whether it’s considered a used car or not but they’re basically then passing on that 7 500 credit that was on the federal side through the lease Sounds very convoluted, by the way, to me on how they did that. But they basically took some vehicles from their dealers, not physically, but paperwork wise. They took some of those from the dealers, effectively giving a down payment on the inventory for the dealer, therefore lowering their carrying costs. is what I’m really guessing they did to help the dealers. How they actually are doing that paperwork-wise, I’m not exactly sure, and I’m guessing that somewhere along the line here, they had to have gotten approval IRS-wise and probably through government itself, because the way that typically works is, even right now, before the September 30th deadline was, if you went and bought an EV, You have to agree that you’ve only made X amount of money to even qualify for that federal tax credit. So how GM and Ford and others did this in bypassing all of that, that’s beyond my understanding. I’ll have to do more reading on that to determine exactly how they did that. But they’ve… They have bought those from, paperwork-wise, they’ve bought it from the dealer, still staying on the dealer’s lot, then allowing the $7,500 credit to pass through on down the road. Only on a lease, though. Probably because they bought that through their leasing division, quote-unquote. But how they’re qualifying for that on all the tax stuff, that I don’t know. That’s beyond my pay grade, to be real honest with you. And the question that I would have, and maybe there’s a dealer out there listening that can text me on this, is that then sold as a new car or a used car? That’s what I want to know. Now, on a lease, it probably doesn’t matter because on a lease, you never get the title to the car anyway, so it’s probably irrelevant. And that’s probably how they’re getting around all of this is because technically, at that point, it is a used car, but it’s being leased through their leasing company, meaning they hold the paperwork on it anyways, and it’s irrelevant. That’s probably how they’re getting around all this. Am I right in thinking that way, Josh?
SPEAKER 03 :
I still don’t understand how they get the credit because the credit is supposed to.
SPEAKER 06 :
That I don’t know either because the credit is supposed to only pass to people that make under a certain amount of annual income.
SPEAKER 15 :
Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
because that law changed because the rebate was going directly to the dealers, i.e. this is what they’re doing here. The dealer gets the credit for that, but you had to make, for example, I think you had to be married, filing jointly, and make under $320K a year, for example. If you made over $320K, you didn’t get any federal credit. So how a leasing company, quote-unquote, they had to have gotten some big okay from government or somebody to be able to do what they did, Before these things expired, somebody had to have done a lot of work internally to figure out how to do this because that’s not typically how you would be able to do things.
SPEAKER 03 :
And did they say whether it’s the state tax credits?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, federal only. Federal only. Only the $7,500. So no state stuff involved in this.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t.
SPEAKER 06 :
And again, I am correct. That car would have to be now a used car. But given the fact it’s in their own leasing division, it’s irrelevant because they hold all the paperwork, title and everything anyways. It’s not being sold, quote unquote, to the retail customer on a regular retail cash or finance sale. It’s a lease. And anytime you lease a car, you never own the car anyways. You don’t hold the paperwork on it at that point.
SPEAKER 03 :
And did they take stuff that was just at the dealership or stuff in production?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I don’t know either. I’m guessing it had to be on a dealer lot. From what I’m reading in this, how the strategy works, I did some AI on this, and how the strategy works is I believe it had to be on a dealer lot to actually get this to qualify. How many of these they did, that I have no numbers on. I don’t know folks on that one. Bob, if you know and you want to send me a text message on that, how many of these they did this on, I have no idea. So thank you, Bob, for bringing that to my attention. I was not aware they were doing this, and they’re doing it sort of in a gray area, and these are not retail sales. They’re leases only. Because as I said, you can’t sell this car on a retail basis at all in this particular case because it’s a used car at that point and there’s no gain at that point. Now, what they’re doing is buying it as their leasing company and then leasing it to the customer as new and giving the discount through the lease because they already got the money back. And yeah, I guess in that way, they could actually do all of that. And given the fact that it doesn’t really matter what the paperwork looks like, what a paperwork nightmare this is, by the way, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter because when you lease a car, you never get the title anyway, so it doesn’t make any difference. It’s irrelevant. Yeah. You’re even registering – even when you go to register this car, it will be – I’m not sure your name is even ever on it. It’s probably going to have Chrysler Credit or Ally or GM Financial or whoever it’s being leased through. That’s actually what the registration is going to be at that point in time because you’re essentially just leasing the car from them.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is a wild one.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is a wild one. Thank you for bringing that up, Bob. I was not aware that they had even thought about doing this. Some bean counter somewhere. Got a really bright idea on how they could actually make this work. And again, the one thing that I’m still, and Josh is as well, trying to figure out is how did they get the federal credit given the fact that they’re not an individual, they’re a company?
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t understand. That doesn’t.
SPEAKER 06 :
There’s some shady stuff there that they got to prove that most people wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. They must have got some things passed through the White House and the IRS or something. They had to have got some special something or other to make this happen because that’s typically not an okay thing to do.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, it’s not. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
And you know because you’re on that end of things even more than I am.
SPEAKER 03 :
I know. I don’t understand how they do it. Because it’s a lot of work for the EV tax credits, both with the state and – And the Fed. And the Fed, and they take their own time and, you know. Correct. And the way you do it has to be right. I mean, firsthand, I had it that way where the Fed called a vehicle, I purchased a truck, and the state called it a car.
SPEAKER 06 :
And even that was a big deal.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I wrote it off as a truck with the state, and they took one of –
SPEAKER 06 :
or refunds back because of it so again there’s a lot to this that’s what I just explained and Bob thank you that’s essentially what they’ve done how all the inner workings of it are I’m not exactly sure and I don’t know how many these units they actually did this with. I would love to know what the actual number is as to how many vehicles were on dealer lots that some of the manufacturers actually went in and did to try to help the dealer out. I’d love to know what that is. Now, one thing Charlie wanted me to mention as well, some of the manufacturers, Hyundai, for example, on the IONIQS, 10K discount. That started the day after the September 30th as soon as the federal credits ran out. They went even further. They upped it 2,500 bucks and did 10K discount on an Ioniq. That’s their EV in that lineup. So you’re going to see more of that when it comes to EVs. How exactly is it all going to shake out? I have no idea. Bob, thanks again for noting that. I appreciate it. Myself, Josh, we’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 09 :
Still haven’t had enough? Go to drive-radio.com. Email your questions and comments. Download previous programs and find lots of useful information, including your nearest Colorado Select Auto Care Center. That’s drive-radio.com. Thanks for listening to Drive Radio, sponsored by the member shops of Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. On KLZ 560.
